Playing Scales & Bad Habits - Pld BR Thread

[AlanB]

Hello all,
I am playing tenor and I have two little questions and I wonder what you think. I have, a couple of months ago, started to really learn my scales and develop a scales learning routine.
1 - I have decided to concentrate on the scales of C#\Db round the circle to C. This is because most of the songs the guitarist and the rest of a band seem to be in keys A,B,C,D,E & F, rarely in the #s or bs. Thus if I want to jam or improvise these seem to be the keys most useful. Is this a bad idea and am I hamstringing myself for later on?
2 - I have chosen to learn the Major, Dominant 7, Minor 7, and Blues scales. Also I practice one key root and learn all of these scales for that root before moving on - rather than thinking in terms of modes (i.e. I have learned C, therefore I know G7 and Dmin7). I think this will develop my ear better, am I right?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Alan

 

[half diminished]

My teacher has me working on the II-V7-I progressions for C major, F major and G major at the moment. So for C major I am starting on Dm7 (II) up to the 7th and 9th, G7 (V) the same and then C∆ (I). Then arpeggios, chords etc. Then onto the next one. I will eventually work around all 12 keys.

Also check out Pete's Taming the Saxophone and Abersold's Volume 3 the II-V7-I progression

 

[tengu01]

Chord outlines

I find working round the keys is a really good idea. Something that really drummed it home for me was to take a piece of music or score and instead of playing the melody, I had to outline the chords in each bar in a continuous stream. It was really hard and really brought out the key signatures I wasn't too au fait with.

So perhaps it might be an idea to get hold of the chords for some of the songs you are singing and then to play over the chord changes with whatever scale/arpeggio/pattern you are working on at the moment. Adds a certain immediacy and relevance to your practice.

Just one idea among many other valuable ones